Damage control after the Geneva fallout

Well, what the events of last week showed was that there is something called talking too soon. The present columnist said the Americans were going to lose the vote, but they won. This is undoubtedly the biggest foreign policy victory achieved by the USA in recent times and perhaps Robert O.Blake and the other Sri Lanka baiters in the State Department should be congratulated for being able to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. How close a call this was to the USA can be gauged from the fact that the difference between those for and against the US resolution was just one.

An important point to note is that even the abstentions have to be considered a vote for Sri Lanka because of the nature of the US resolution. What the US resolution wanted was Sri Lanka to take certain steps, and the countries that abstained from voting were obviously not interested in getting Sri Lanka to take those steps. In fact two of the countries that abstained from voting spoke at the debate and both countries made clear that they were abstaining because they thought the resolution was unwarranted.

Kyrgyzstan, speaking before the vote explained its stand saying they would abstain as the delegation held the view that Sri Lanka had not had enough time to review the recommendations of the Commission. The Council should allow enough time for improvement of the situation without interference. Action at the international level would only destabilize the situation, which was not in the favour of any member of the international community.

Angola, speaking in an explanation of the vote before the vote on the resolution said it would abstain from voting because the principles that guided the Council had not been respected. The resolution should encourage and help the people of Sri Lanka to pursue national reconciliation. Angola had gone through a complex and difficult process of national reconciliation and the results could not be achieved on paper but only at the grass roots level.

It should be noted that all the other countries that abstained (every single one of them) Djibouti, Burkina Faso, Malaysia, Senegal and Jordan voted for Sri Lanka in May 2009. So even though only Angola and Kyrgyzstan spoke, all the others also very clearly abstained in sympathy with Sri Lanka. What this means is that in the 47 member council, the USA got 24 votes and there were 23 against it. The USA managed to stave off defeat by bringing Manmohan Singh by his beard to the vote, and browbeating dependant countries to vote for their resolution. As minister D.E.W.Gunasekera said in parliament, the human rights council has now become a place where resolutions are not adopted or rejected on their own merit, but are based on various horse deals between countries.

The Americans fought like demons to win this battle deploying everything they had against Sri Lanka and they won and due credit has to be given to them for that. The USA obviously still can do things. From the very beginning, the Americans had much more riding on this resolution than Sri Lanka. If they lost against Sri Lanka, which is an insignificant speck in the Indian ocean, that would have spelt the end of American prestige in the world and Robert Blake’s job in the State department. Nobody would have taken them seriously after that. In fact, in hindsight, it was rather silly of the officials in the US State Department to get into a contest with a country like Sri Lanka which is so insignificant that if America had lost, that would have been the end of American dominance on the world stage. What the Americans just escaped is figuratively speaking, an extinction level event. After having begged, cajoled and threatened, they managed to get only 24 votes. In fact one can see that the countries that abstained from voting have done so only under protest and in sympathy with Sri Lanka. The maximum that even the Americans could extract from them with all the threats and persuasion was a pledge to abstain which would give the Americans an edge. If India had not voted for the American resolution it would most certainly have been defeated. The clinching vote was India’s.

Some African countries had told the Sri Lankan delegation that they realise that Sri Lanka’s position was justified but that America gave them aid whereas Sri Lanka could not give them anything and that therefore, they had no option but to vote against their consciences and support the American resolution. By just examining the list of 24 countries that Voted against us, we can figure out who was brought in against their will. Of them, the USA had from the very beginning countries like Austria, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, the USA and Uruguay.

But this was 17 votes just enough to get it in to the order paper but not enough to make it win. The remaining votes were obviously obtained through arm twisting. (Of the other seven countries that voted against us, Uruguay presents a special case because she signed as a signatory to the paper calling for a special session on Sri Lanka, in May 2009, but ultimately voted in favour of Sri Lanka in that instance.) The other seven countries that voted against us were Cameroon, Nigeria, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Libya, India and Benin. Except for Costa Rica and Libya, they are all are below Sri Lanka in terms of per capita income and were obviously vulnerable to economic pressure. With regard to India, the compulsions were political as was the case with Libya.

The reason why so many countries were uncomfortable with the US resolution is because of the precedent its sets enabling the western powers to selectively intervene in the internal affairs of countries. Cuba in fact said that the resolution set a negative precedent that risked singling out developing countries and further that the mission of the Human Rights Council was to provide technical assistance and cooperation to a country and build capacity with the consent of the concerned country. If done differently, it would put in question the sovereignty and independence of the concerned country. If the Council adopted the resolution on Sri Lanka, it would act contrary to the principle of non-intervention.

In fact, the Indians seemed to realize the enormity of what they had done and after the vote was taken, India made a statement saying among other things that the primary responsibility for the promotion and protection of human rights rested with States themselves. And that any assistance given should be in consultation with the Sri Lankan Government. This may be taken as an indication that India will oppose any attempt to force anything down Sri Lanka’s throat. Well they have said it, but whether ‘other compulsions’ will compel them to do otherwise if it comes to a push, is yet to be seen. Now that the resolution has been passed, the question is how are we to deal with it? The requirements in the resolution can be paraphrased as follows.

– Sri Lanka has to implement the constructive recommendations in the

LLRC report.

– Sri Lanka has to present a comprehensive action plan as expeditiously

as possible detailing the steps the Government has taken and will take to implement the LLRC recommendations.

– Sri Lanka has to detail the steps they will take to address alleged violations of international law,

– The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights will provide advice and technical assistance on implementing those steps and Sri Lanka has to accept their ‘help’.

– The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has to present a report to the Council on the provision of such assistance at its twenty-second session.

If we take these requirements one by one, asking the Sri Lankan government to implement the LLRC report is no issue. However, the requirement that an action plan on the implementation of the LLRC recommendations was what turned the Phillippines to our side. The Philippines, speaking in an explanation of the vote before the vote, said they opposed the introduction of a trigger mechanism in the Council and attempts to turn technical assistance into a form of political pressure to influence Governments. This resolution was a reincarnation of the trigger mechanism and it attempted to turn international cooperation into a form of political pressure. The Phillippines has a very valid point here. But the question is that the resolution has been passed and Sri Lanka will have to figure out a way to meet the situation.

Coupled to this ‘road map’ for the implementation of the LLRC recommendations is the requirement that Sri Lanka take steps to address ‘alleged violations of international law’. Nothing has been said about how Sri Lanka should ‘address’ these allegations. If by the term ‘address’ was meant ‘investigate’, then of course the first step will be to issue a call for specific allegations to be submitted to the Sri Lankan government. Nobody on earth can investigate vaguely stated broad allegations and general statements as for example that ‘there were many civilian deaths during the last days of the war.’ There will have to be specific allegations made. In fact, specific instances with the date and place were mentioned in the report on incidents during the final few months of the war put out by the US State Department in October 2009. But if these incidents are to be investigated, the US State Department will have to submit more details to the Sri Lankan government. But it may be the case that even the US government does not have any further details about those reported incidents.

Even the Ban Ki-moon’s advisory panel report claims to have received many credible reports of specific human rights violations. The advisory panel will have to divulge that information to the Sri Lankan government if it is to investigate them. But both the US State Department and the Ban advisory panel are keeping the details to themselves on the claim that the Sri Lankan government will harass the witnesses. One wonders whether the inclusion of this clause that Sri Lanka should address alleged violations of international law is a ruse designed to pave the way for an international war crimes investigation. When Sri Lanka asks for specific allegations to investigate, the Western powers refuse to provide any on the grounds that witnesses will be harassed. Then Sri Lanka will not be able to make any investigation and after a while, the western powers will make the case that Sri Lanka was not implementing the HRC resolution and call for an international investigation. The international tribunal too will not have any investigable details, but the intention is to get the international investigation instituted first. What happens after that is not important to the West because all that is aimed at through this exercise is regime change in Sri Lanka.

If it appears that the west is involved in an exercise like this, then Sri Lanka should keep the members of the HRC informed individually about the situation. There are two aspects to this. On the one hand are the allegations of the violation of international law, which we dealt with above. On the other hand is the international law of armed conflict itself which is contained in multifarious documents such as the Geneva Conventions, Additional Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions, the Rome Statute and the rules of the International Criminal Court and the compendium of customary humanitarian law compiled by the ICRC. The Ban advisory panel for example has held that international laws were violated in Sri Lanka only after misrepresenting the law of armed conflict. As pointed out in a previous column, the rules of armed conflict that the Ban advisory panel has sought to apply to Sri Lanka have not been accepted even by the Western countries that have been hounding Sri Lanka. In fact many of the ‘laws’ that the Ban advisory panel spoke of do not exist anywhere.

If specific instances of alleged violations are presented to the Sri Lankan government, replying to those in terms of the law of armed conflict accepted by the Western nations will be a fairly uncomplicated affair. The last requirement that Sri Lanka has to adhere to is to accept ‘the assistance’ (read supervison) of the Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner in implementing the measures called for. This was what the Phillippines was vehemently opposed to, as it sets a dangerous precedent. But anyway, it has been passed with regard to Sri Lanka, and here too we will have to make the best of a bad situation.

One factor standing very much in Sri Lanka’s favour in this regard is the low credibility of the UN Human Rights Commissioner’s office. In fact the resolution that was taken up for discussion immediately after the one on Sri Lanka was a resolution censuring the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner over the imbalance in the geographical representation of its composition where a single region (the West) occupies almost half of the posts of the Office of the High Commissioner. This resolution was brought at the last sessions and due to frantic lobbying by the western powers, it was deferred to the March session. In the meantime, a report was compiled claiming that action had been taken to reduce the number of western staffers on the Human rights commissioner’s office from 67% to 49%. The non-Western countries were not impressed and a resolution was passed against the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner with 33 voting for and only 12 voting against it with two abstentions.

It goes without saying that when the non-Western nations were talking about the preponderance of Westerners on the human rights commissioner’s staff, they were not agitating for more employment opportunities for themselves. What they were concerned about was the possibility of prejudice and bias in the operation of the secretariat of the council. The low standing and credibility of the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner’s office will stand Sri Lanka in good stead and we should not hesitate to report even the slightest display of arrogance and prejudice on the part of the OCHR to the Council.

The question is what if the West tries to force supervision by the office UN High Commissioner for Human Rights down our throats? India will have to make good on their statement that any ‘assistance’ will be given only with the concurrence of the Sri Lankan government. That India was forced to vote against Sri Lanka at all, is a huge come down for that country. What that proved was that the Indian central government had no control over their foreign policy. A country that stated that they as a matter of principle did not support country specific resolutions were brought by their ears to vote. Pressure was applied by Tamil Nadu from within and by the USA from outside. Hillary Clinton’s meeting with Tamil Nadu chief minister Jeyalalitha Jeyaram some months ago had obviously borne fruit.

The present columnist has always held that it is not a strong India that Sri Lanka has to fear but a weak one. What we now have is a terminally ill giant on our doorstep which could collapse at any moment and obviously we will have to look elsewhere for our security. One of the benefits of India signing the resolution against Sri Lanka is that it liberates us from deliberately keeping a ceiling on Chinese investments so as not to hurt India’s feelings. We need the investment and China has proved to be a steadfast ally which cannot easily be influenced to dump her friends for considerations of expediency. China, Russia, Cuba and the other countries have supported Sri Lanka throughout the war and even during the days of the pro-Western J.R.Jayewardene, it was not the West that helped that government but countries like China and Russia. For the record, the state of Massachusetts in the USA is the first international supporter of the Eelamist cause, even before the Indians started supporting Tamil terrorism. Back in 1979, the Governor of Massachusetts even declared a Tamil Eelam Day and the state legislature passed a resolution calling upon the president of the United States to support the creation of a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka. What the Americans seem to be doing now is just that albeit belatedly.

Perhaps this UN-HRC showdown heralds a new phase in Sri Lanka’s foreign policy reminiscent of the break of 1956. The present writer has heard people saying that this should be handled with one’s head. Usually when people say that our heads have to be used in foreign policy, what is meant by that is that we should nod our heads. The present columnist would be inclined to think that the government should go the whole hog and seek new allies and not hold back on any Chinese projects because that is the only thing that will guarantee the security of Sri Lanka. Just the previous week, when the D.S.Senanayake commemoration was being discussed, one UNP stalwart said that in D.S.Senanayake’s view, the danger to Sri Lanka has historically come from India and he entered into the defence pacts with Britain and allowed the British to have bases in Sri Lanka to guard against Indian intervention. Hence, there would be no harm in the Chinese being allowed a free run of Sri Lanka in exchange for security.

There is another thing that the Sri Lankan government has to guard against. The Indians have always had the habit of bringing pressure on Sri Lanka when they are unable to control their own allies or their population. During the Thimpu talks, when they were unable to get the Tamil terrorists to come to a compromise, they tried to bring more pressure on JRJ to concede more. Unable to get JRJ to concede as much as they wanted, there was an attempt to assassinate JR. A huge 120 kilo gelignite bomb in a van was discovered one morning as the second round of the Thimpu talks failed. It had been timed to explode at 9.00am and was just about to be driven to the presidential secretariat when it was discovered by an alert cop who had noticed a suspicious looking van parked near St Lucia’s cathedral in Kotahena. The terrorists were from EROS, an organization well known to have operated on RAW instructions. In fact even the main suspect in the CTO bomb was captured by the police but had to be released at the insistence of the Indians in the wake of the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord. In this new situation, President Mahinda Rajapaksa in particular and the Rajapaksas in general have to be very careful and mindful of their personal security.

About this Blog

This blog concerns the Sri Lankans fight against LTTE terrorism.LTTE is a ruthless terror outfit which fights for an ethnically pure, separate Tamil homeland for Tamils living in Sri Lanka since 1983. The outfit is well known for its extreme tribalism and nefarious crimes against soft targets specially the women and children. During its two and half decade long terrorist war against Sri Lankan people, LTTE has killed over 70,000 people mostly civilians in its ethnic cleansing raids, indiscriminate bomb attacks, suicide blasts, etc. LTTE is also in top of the UN's list of shame for using child soldiers in war. As a tactical measure the outfit uses only young female cadres and male child soldiers for the front lines.

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Calander

The Eelam bubble

The Tamil diaspora still talk of winning the "Eelam" war, of seeing "the light at the end of the tunnel of a mythical Tamil state" , even as six elite army divisions strategically lay siege to the Wanni heartland. As it is there is a light, that of a fast-approaching express train that would steam roll the "Eealm" myth to the sun baked Wanni floor forever.

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Their sacrifice will not be in vain….

"I am a Sri Lankan and I am free today because someone fought, bled or died in my place. I vow that as long as there is breath in my body that that their sacrifice will not be in vain."

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Smell Of Victory

Smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing in the world smells like that.I love the smell of napalm in the morning.One time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of 'em, not one enemy body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory. Someday this war's gonna end.
Apocalypse Now(1979)

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Give to those who have given

They died for something that may be trivial to many. A piece of high ground on a salty sand dune, or a landing area in a landmine filled beach, or simply protecting a cadjan bunker in some remote corner of the island.
But when dusk settles on this protracted war, every sacrifice these thousands made will have a reason and purpose.
We should pay tribute to all our fallen heroes who gave their today for our tomorrow.

We are pleased to announce that our new website,www.slguardian.org, is live and ready for the world to view. We have completely redesigned our layout with simplicity, ease of use, and accessibility in mind. It will be a tool for both fulfilling our mission and helping us provide better resources to our readers.This new website will keep pace with our rapidly […]

| by Aboobacker Rameez( January 23, 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) It is heartening to see a suitably qualified person being appointed as the Minister of Education. It is even more heartening to see the Minister, Prof. Rajiva Wijesinghe, attempting to introduce much needed reforms to the universities. One of the other important aspects that has credibly […]

| The following statement issued by the Asian Human Rights Commission ( January 23, 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The 100-day reform programme of the new government is an opportune moment for rebuilding the legal structure of Sri Lanka, a precondition for achieving the “good governance” that has been promised.The legal structure of Sri Lanka has suffere […]

| by N.S.Venkataraman ( January 23, 2015, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Several decades back, Karl Marx gave strong call to the workers that “you have nothing to lose except the chain”. This call of Karl Marx resounded across the world, as it was then appropriate to the issues and problems faced by the blue collar workmen. It resulted in the development of ve […]

| by S. Chandrasekharan( January 23, 2015, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) As expected the dead line of Jan 22, 2015 for the promulgation of a new constitution is being missed. The political parties refused to compromise and made little headway in drafting a new constitution. One whole year was wasted.Too late in the day and very close to the deadline the eig […]

| by Tisaranee Gunasekara“Is it always the same SpringWho reprises her role forever?”Neruda (The Book of Questions)( January 22, 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Why were the police slower than slow in acting against marauding Parliamentarian Palitha Thevarapperuma? Wasn’t this tardiness due to the fact that the alleged miscreant is on the governing side? […]

| by Kuldip NayarFormer Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa did not regret the blood bath that the Sri Lankan Army indulged in even after the LTTE surrendered( January 21, 2015, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) New Delhi had lots to explain when Mahinda Rajpaksa was re-elected as Sri Lanka’s President for the second time. India had supplied him small arms w […]

How the U.S. Can Help Sri Lanka Turn the Corner—with a targeted war crimes prosecution| by Ryan Goodman( janaury 21, 2015, New York City, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Obama administration helped catalyze the United Nations’ ongoing efforts to bring accountability in Sri Lanka for mass war crimes committed in that country’s civil war. In a New York Times Op-Ed, I […]

| by Ranil Wicramasinghe ( January 21, 2015, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) “Throughout the previous government, the judicial powers of the country was misused by the political interests. Even after war got over, the law of the country was not properly established,” Prime Minister appointed Mr. Ranil Wicramasinghe noted in a statement. “We are in the process o […]

| by Noam Chomsky( January 21, 2015, Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) After the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 people including the editor and four other cartoonists, and the murder of four Jews at a kosher supermarket shortly after, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared "a war against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Is […]

Swift, Silent & Deadly

Fear The LRRP

The LRRP has been very successful in covert operations against the LTTE terrorists in the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka. Its members were so successful in assassinating key LTTE figures that many LTTE leaders refused to come out of their jungle bunkers before the 2002 ceasefire was implemented. After the resumption of hostilities, it is believed that the LRRP units conducted operations in the LTTE held northern province too.
The LTTE has accused the Sri Lankan Deep Penetration Units of launching attacks on LTTE leaders in their areas, although the Sri Lankan Government denies any involvement in these attacks. The teams have had success against LTTE leaders such as military intelligence leader Colonel Charls and many leaders. Other success have included observing LTTE training camps and calling in air strikes. The LRRP's successes and dedicated operators have garnered a fearful reputation among the LTTE.
The SL Army commander Gen.Sarath Fonseka had recently acknowledged that LRRP units were used to beat the LTTE at their own game.It was later revealed that LTTE, who were masters at jungle warfare refused to engage in combat and withdrew from their positions instead of holding their ground because of these elite soldiers. SL LRRP unit falls under SF3 (Special Forces 3rd Regiment)they and SF1,SF2,SF4 & Commandos played a vital role in eliminating the LTTE including V.Piribaharan a.k.a Sun God a.k.a Supreme Commander of the LTTE. LTTE according to FBI is was the most dangerous terrorist group in the world.

Things you didn’t do

Remember the day I borrowed your brand new car and I dented it?

I thought you'd kill me but you didn't.

And remember the time I dragged you to the beach and you said it would rain and it did?

I thought you'd say, "I told you so", but you didn't.

Do you remember the time I flirted with all the guys to make you jealous and you were.

I thought you'd leave me, but you didn't.

Do you remember the time I spilled strawberry pie all over your car rug.

I thought you'd hit me but you didn't.

And remember the time I forgot to tell you the dance was formal and you showed up in jeans?

I thought you'd drop me. But you didn't.

Yes, there were lots of things you didn't do.

But you put up with me and you loved me and you protected me.

There were lots of thing I wanted to make up to you when you returned from War.

But you didn't.

Meta

Dayan Jayatilleka has made some pertinent points regarding conflict resolution and the seemingly vexed issue of Tamil grievances/aspirations and relief sought in an article titled ‘Constitution-making and the North-South political cycle’. I have an issue withe the term ‘North-South’ so let me first get it out of the way. It is a ‘break’ that has been used […]

Did he say 'I'll make other countries also great (again)"?It has been reported that the Government has asked US President Elect Donald Trump to pressure the UN Human Rights Council to drop war crimes allegations against the country’s troops. First of all, while there is references to allegations, what the UNHRC has focused on is essentially ef […]

President Maithripala Sirisena has instructed the IGP and Chiefs of Security Forces to arrest all those who incited racism. At the Security Council meeting where these instructions were given, Minister Mano Ganeshan, it is reported, had drawn the attention of the President to a statement made by a bikkhu in Batticaloa which, he claims, hurt the Tamil people […]

Fidel Castro is no more. He died today at the age of 90. Whether he is hero or villain, he certainly is historic. This cannot be disputed. The following article was published in the Sunday Island o December 12, 2000. It was one of the earliest articles I wrote for that newspaper. That Latin America bleeds is not news. In fact, blood-letting seems to be […]

What does a cartoonist have in common with a soccer player? Deftness, certainly. An eye for line and space. Innovation. Not all soccer players can draw and not all artists can dribble a football. Kurukulasuriya Eligious Camillus Perera could do both. He’s long since hung up his boots, but his brushes are still fresh, as is his wit, political acumen an […]

noreply@blogger.com (Malinda Seneviratne)

Silent Heros – The LRRPs’

"Stealth, bravery and a commitment to duty, these were the attributes of the men of the Sri Lankas' Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs). Going deep inside LTTE held enemy lines, danger was their watchwood & Military Skills was their only protection."

Victory Day : Lest We Forget

It was on the night of the 19th of May and dawn of 20th 2009 that Sri Lankan rid itself completely of the plague known as Tamil terrorism and became a country where there is freedom of movement for all.

Let us remember those that gave their lives to make this a reality and remember all the misguided LTTE youth who died in vain with compassion.

I had left for Jordan the day after my father’s 93rd birthday, on June 27th. He had had a party as usual, and all the reception rooms downstairs, the dining room and the rectangular verandah in front, and the large drawing room with its extensions, the round verandah giving on to the garden and the […]

The third country I visited in June 2014, in that period of quietude when nothing was moving in Sri Lanka except for an increasing sense of decline, was Jordan. I did not count it as a new country, for I had stayed overnight there in a hotel, when I was traveling to Turkey early in […]

Oddly enough, as my father was fading, the world of my other great rock in these last years, Ena, also shrank. In 2012 we had celebrated her 90th birthday in Yala, quite a large crowd though initially she had told me that she wanted only me and Shanthi Wilson. Of course she could not have […]

In retrospect it is clear that there was no hope of stopping Mahinda Rajapaksa rushing headlong into disaster, given that so many of those around him, while pursuing their own agendas, had lulled him into a false sense of security. But it still seemed necessary to try, and I did have at least one significant […]

In the month after my extended 60th birthday celebrations, I travelled extensively. This was not however to any new countries, so I remained stuck on 89 for a few months more. But I was able to get to fascinating places in countries I had been to previously. In India this was to the North East, […]

After those idyllic few days with my father at my cottage, I went to Algeria, determined to see more of the Roman remains of Africa, and if possible get to the deep desert. Years earlier I had bought guidebooks for Tunisia and Libya, which had better sites, and I had managed to get to Tunisia […]

From the start it was clear that 2014 would be a bleak year. My father was much weaker than before, and had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. We knew that this was a slow process and the doctors said there was no need for any interventions since old age was likely to do for him […]

After Ethiopia, I felt I should see the Sudan, not only in search of other aspects of the Nile, but also because I realized that it was the repository of many splendours from the Egyptian Empires. The pyramidic culture had extended far to the South, and then so had Hellenistic civilization, following the conquest of […]

Much of this series has been about my personal travels, and the slow but steady dissolution of the world I had known. To dwell only on these would however give a misleading impression of what occupied me most during the years from 2012, when I began to realize that my efforts to promote reform were […]

With Lakmahal slowly folding up as it were, and the country in decline, my principal solace in 2014 was travel. Asia and Europe I knew well, and I had been to enough of South America to feel I had seen enough of it for the moment. The Middle East too I had seen a fair […]

rajivawijesinha

Nineteen ’til I Die

"Last night it rained. And I stood under my parents’ porch and smoked. The deluge of water on the tin sheeting drowned out everything — traffic, the neighbours, the sound of the TV. Just me and the rain and the dark, like it had been on that first night in December 1990. I stepped out from the porch, and the rain put out my cigarette in an instant. I spat away the shreds of tobacco and let the rain soak me. Remembering them, as I have done a hundred thousand times in the last eighteen years.

I can remember the ridged steel flooring of the Y-8′s cargo bay like it was yesterday, digging into my arse as I sit packed in with my platoon, flying to Palay.

I remember the smell of wet sandbags on that first night on the FDL at Elephant Pass. Looking out into the black ink beyond the perimeter. Here be Tigers.

And the ten-man patrols through knee-deep water, trying to be quiet. “Kata vahapang, huththo,“

The hot, dusty days and wet, rainy nights. Mosquitoes. And being tired. So tired. Every day. All the time.

And contact. Finally. What we’d lived for, longed for, suffered for. What we’d watched in movies and read about in books. Contact. Sex for virgins. With red tracers. And the elephant sitting on my back, squeezing the breath out of my lungs as I tried to hold my rifle steady. The hammer roar of 7.62-mm fire, gunflashes blurring the distant, running figures.

None of us were over twenty, most eighteen or nineteen. Ariyaratne, the section commander, and Dias, the machine-gunner; our parents, old men of twenty-four. Combat veterans of the Sinha Rifles. The hard core.

And the killing. I remember every single one. The blood, the eyes. The smell. I remember Rohantha getting hit by the .50. I remember the sixteen-year-old bayoneted girl with the long plaited hair come loose. I remember kneeling at a tube well and washing the crusted blood out from under my finger nails.

Down time. Sitting in abandoned tin buildings in the Saltern Siding. We’d strip down to OG shorts and slippers and our Death By Bullets T-shirts. We never talked about victory, about killing Prabha, or defeating the Tigers. Our personal goals were to survive, to do well, to not let each other or our regiment down. Sura talking about the XT-250 he wanted to buy. Husni and Sanjeeva talking about girls. Dias and I cleaning guns and talking about optics.

I thought I knew them all very well, but now I realize I didn’t really. And now, sadly, I can’t recall their faces in detail. And sometimes I have to think hard to remember all nine names.

Well, it looks like it’s over now. And I wish those guys were here to see it. I wish we could all go out for a drink and talk about EPS and catch up on our lives. But it’s too late for all that. It all took too long. I wish they were all in their thirties, like me. Maybe they’d have wives, and children, or not. I wish they could walk down the road and be offered kiri bath by the trishaw drivers. I wish they were alive."